I'm having the same problem, the game not starting, on Windows 7 x64. I launch the game. I get a black window that looks somehwat like Command Prompt. It goes away and then nothing else happens. I'ver verified the game and it verified sucessfully. Any ideas?

Launching it from "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\scratches.exe" yields the same result.

Launching it a handful of times eventually I got this error in a steam pop-up window: "Scratches: Director's Cut failed to start (error code 83)".

I know I l;aunched another game recently that had an installer that referenced "OpenAL32". Could this be the issue? I'm pretty sure it was Damnation.

I had the same problem. I figured out a fix for mine tho. Apparently AVG decided to block it as a virus so i had to allow it through that before i was able to play it. Not sure if it had something to do with the CMD prompt or what but seemed to fix the issue for me.